A three-game sweep over Newman secured at least the No. 4 seed in the Heartland Conference Tournament. The University of Texas of the Permian Basin baseball team took a 9-3 win over the Jets in the third and final game of the series, giving it a 14-13 league mark with one conference series to play.
The three losses for the Jets eliminated them from post season play as they have finished their conference slate for the year. The Falcons can actually move up to the No. 3 seed with at least two wins over Panhandle State in two weeks coupled with a pair of loses by Texas A&M International, which has St. Mary's and St. Edward's left on its schedule. UTPB also holds the tie-breaker over the Dustdevils as it took four of six games from them.
The Falcons pounded out 13 hits including three doubles, a triple and a home run.
Ryan Giacomini had three on the day with three runs batted in and a run scored. He accounted for a double and a solo homer to left.
UTPB was able to score an unearned run in the first thanks to two errors by Newman.
Chandler Goode led off with a single down the line behind third base but would advance to second on a throwing error by Ryan Engrav at third.
Hugo Hernandez would move him to third on a sacrifice bunt, but pitcher Ashton Hoffman was unable to come up with the play, which allowed Hernandez to reach safely.
The score would stay that way until the Jets benefited from a bad hop off the bat of Mike Williams, who's routine base hit to center bounced over Goode, allowing David Longmore and John Bonebreak to score. Williams would end up with a triple.
The Falcons got the two runs back and then some in the fourth when
Brantley Miller tripled to deep center allowing
Austin Wooldridge to score. Miller would come around to score when second baseman Corey Cowan dropped the ball on the relay. UTPB scored three runs in the inning and led the rest of the way.
UTPB put up single runs in the fifth and sixth before plating three more in the seventh. Falcon starter
Ryan Escarcega went five innings and gave up two runs off five hits while striking out five in the win.
Kyle Cormier, Andrew Buckham,
Dylan Giesler and
Travis Wilcox tossed one inning each and the quartet combined to allow just one run.
The Falcons will host Arkansas-Fort Smith in a non-conference series before closing out the regular season with a three-game set with Panhandle State.
